Litter Brooch

Konrad Mehus 
Today, it’s pronounced – it’s part of everyday life to think about recycling. But… not so long ago... It was perhaps a little bit more provocative… and not that many people were thinking about it.  
 
I've always seen myself as a craftsman, really… in the old sense of the word. I'm someone who’s had an understanding of the technical aspects of working with materials. But now, as the years have passed, I think that what's important to me in my work, or has been important, is probably the ability to express myself, or to express an idea. The matter of materials has taken a back seat. 
 
I'm looking for the materiality and the colour, and the possibilities that lie within the material, much more than related to value.  
 
I have a sea of elements lying around in the workshop after a long production period – fragments of this, fragments of that... And the brooch consists of such fragments. So… something was perhaps found on the ground and taken back to the workshop because it had an expression that was interesting. Not necessarily to use for a specific work, but perhaps it was something you wondered about… a connection. And then later, some of it ended up in the brooch. 
 
I had a period where all I thought about was tin, and tin cans, and how I could use this material in some way. Here, in this work, it came about by squeezing tin cans down and finding an expression I was intrigued by. 
  
First of all, the choice of material that I use is consistently simple – that is, cheap and simple. And expressing something in that material that is as status-laden as the nature of the Sølje material. 
 
The thing about high and low status has never really interested me. I've actually been more and more concerned with expressing an idea, that is, being able to formulate an idea visually in a work.